Prognostic significance of 67-kDa laminin receptor expression in advanced gastric cancer.

The ability of cancer cells to attach to laminin has been correlated with their metastatic potential and highly metastatic cancer cells seem to express on their surface significantly more laminin receptors than do their much less metastatic or benign counterparts. The expression of 67-kDa laminin receptors (LR) was investigated in a group of 75 patients who underwent gastrectomy for advanced gastric cancer, with special reference to the possible role in the tumor progression and in the overall survival. The tumor LR expression was immunohistochemically determined in paraffin-embedded sections using the MLuC5 monoclonal antibody which recognizes the 67-kDa LR and the avidin-biotin immunoperoxidase method. Of the 75 cases analyzed, 43 cases (57.3%) displayed a positive reaction. The cumulative 5-year survival rate was 72.6% (95% CI 52.5-85.3) for patients without expression of LR and 46.6% (29.8-61.8) for those with positive LR expression. A significant association between LR expression and depth of tumor invasion (0.022) was found. By univariate analysis the presence of laminin receptors seemed to be associated with a higher risk of death [RR 1.72 (95% CI 0.71-4.20], but this effect disappeared after controlling for depth of tumor invasion. In conclusion, these results suggest that tumor expression of laminin receptors could be correlated with tumor aggressiveness. However, the prognostic significance of laminin receptor expression is already provided by the depth of tumor invasion.